Amartya Sen: what British rule really did for India

It is true that before British rule, India was starting to fall behind other parts of the world - but many of the arguments defending the Raj are based on serious misconceptions about India's past, imperialism and history itself

The British empire in India was in effect established at the Battle of Plassey on 23 June 1757. The battle was swift, beginning at dawn and ending close to sunset. It was a normal monsoon day, with occasional rain in the mango groves at the town of Plassey, which is between Calcutta, where the British were based, and Murshidabad, the capital of the kingdom of Bengal. It was in those mango groves that the British forces faced the Nawab Siraj-ud-Doula's army and convincingly defeated it.

British rule ended nearly 200 years later with Jawaharlal Nehru's famous speech on India's tryst with destiny" at midnight on 14 August 1947. Two hundred years is a long time. What did the British achieve in India, and what did they fail to accomplish?